


Heart of Oak

by i_claudia



Series: Check/Mate [11]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Age of Sail, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Infidelity, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 05:56:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which things fall apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart of Oak

**Author's Note:**

> (See endnotes for slightly spoilery notes. Also, in case you need to hear this up front: this series is almost finished, but this is not the last piece of the universe.) Unbetaed.
> 
> Crossposted on LJ [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/97524.html#cutid2).

A life spent at sea has long been recognized as a life uncertain: a life plagued by illness and storms and ever-shifting waters, the only true firm land to be found in the authority of a captain's orders. Sailors must necessarily serve at the whim of the winds and currents of the world, both those of the sea herself and the far more treacherous whimsies of their superiors. A good seaman will judge the wind and set his sails accordingly, giving up all thoughts of a certain course; he will recognize as a matter of survival how best to weather foul winds, to learn the sea as he once learned the hills and mountains of his home—he will learn all he can, and hope for luck, or he will perish. He will learn, too, that those once-familiar hills are home no longer, that his choice when he took to sea necessarily made him a stranger among those who used to count him brother, son, who held him in the dearest circles of their hearts. 

Merlin Emrys knew all of this, knew it as closely as a holy man might know his rosary: it barely held a place in his conscious mind, and yet it coloured all he did. It filled his every thought and fear, from those he voiced aloud to Will as they passed over yet another rolling sea to the terror-dreams he barely dared confide to the strings of his violin. Yet still, despite all of his experience, all the equanimity he had wrestled and sweated and bled for at the mercies of the winds, he found his feet cut from under him entirely when he came ashore at London and found a certain announcement in the newspaper he had purchased from a boy to pass the time spent waiting in the Admiralty. (Decorated commodore he might be, with one eye ever firmly fixed upon the colours of an admiral, but he knew better than to expect his visit to be anything but arduously long.) 

He barely noted the name of the bride—the announcement was innocuous in its innocence, hardly counting among the most shocking events of the day—and ignored the details of her gown, but as he read the groom's name he grew quite pale; so pale, in fact, that the porter, who harboured a fondness for him, sent in haste for a glass of water and enquired as to whether the commodore felt quite well.

“It is only a passing feeling,” Merlin replied, casting aside the paper and struggling with a smile. “I was unfortunate enough to contract a slight fever near Ceylon, and it plagues me still. It shall leave me soon enough.” Despite the bravado in his words, the hand with which he took the glass shook, and the porter kept a watchful eye on him until he took his leave. 

As he had expected, Merlin spent the better part of his day waiting upon a long line of insufferable people at the Admiralty: all of whom, it seemed, wished to speak with him and yet preferred to leave him waiting for an hour before they allowed him into their presence. On this day, though, he noted very little of his usual annoyance, answering their questions and accepting his new orders almost, it felt, by rote; he moved as if in a dream as he hailed a cab and directed it along his customary route to the small rooms he kept when he was in London. The rooms were dark and damp with the rain when he arrived, but he made no attempt to stir the fire, merely dropping the much-folded newspaper to the floor and sinking into the lone chair, exhausted. He felt curiously empty, as if his body were a husk and he himself was suspended somewhere above his own head, watching from without as his shoulders curled down and inward until his face lay buried between his hands.

A girl entered, some hours later, to make up the fire, and yet he did not move to greet her as he normally did, nor enquire as to her day and the health of Mrs Simmons, the proprietress of the establishment—an absence of his usual courtesy which so worried the girl that she could not help but comment on it to the others who were employed at the house. Mrs Simmons, being an excitable woman of strong arms but nervous heart, sent a supper up to the commodore as soon as she heard of it, and was talked out of sending for a doctor only after great length and a strenuous argument with Mr Simmons. Alice—for so the girl who tended the fires was called—was privately of the opinion that the doctor ought to have been sent for anyway, and she confided as much in the message boy who was frequently found hanging about the house, hoping for a glimpse of her.

“For he's so pale,” she told him. “As if he'd seen a ghost or summat, poor man.”

The message boy merely nodded—though the thought of ghosts gave him the shivers he did not care to contribute that to the conversation—but Alice felt better for having expressed herself, and the boy did not mind listening in the least.

In any event, despite the opinions of both Alice and Mrs Simmons, Merlin had no need for the services of the good doctor, and had in fact accurately predicted his own diagnosis. So he believed, at least, when the sun rose and he looked up, blinking the blurriness from his eyes, the worst of the stupor having passed. He dressed and took himself about the usual errands and calls which necessarily filled his time while he was in port—with the exception of one. He had, previous to his visit to the Admiralty, begun an eager letter in anticipation of a particular visit, a letter which he now tore into careful, even pieces and tossed into the fire. 

When he returned that afternoon, weary from too much time spent quarrelling with the tailor and his prize agent, he found a note awaiting him. He had barely entered his rooms when he saw it, laid neatly on the small table by his chair, and the sight of it stopped him just inside the door—stopped the very breath in his chest. The note bore nothing but his name, but he was intimately familiar with the curving slant of the hand which had composed it—he kept a small stack of similar letters hidden among his stockings in the bottom of his sea chest—and the sight of it now caught cruelly at him. He stood a long time, impassive, his face showing nothing of the turmoil in his mind, and when at last he moved it was sudden, impulsive: in three quick strides he crossed the room and hurled the paper into the fire with a violence that startled him. 

Alice, when she came up that evening to tend the fire with a fresh ribbon in her hair, found him writing orders at the desk, the lamp neatly trimmed and flickering cheerfully.

“There was a letter, Commodore,” she began, for she had been the one to take the envelope from the message boy and brought it upstairs, and she felt a proprietary worry over it. 

“I received it,” Merlin said, abrupt, though he softened the curtness of the words with a small smile. “Thank you.”

She blushed, and pinched herself for it in the soft space on the underside of her elbow, where he could not see, before busying herself at the grate. When she had finished, Merlin—who had nearly finished his dispatches—stopped her before she could slip from the room. 

“Please inform Mrs Simmons I shall be out of her way again tomorrow morning.”

“Oh,” Alice said, after a pause, one foot still held just off the ground. “But I was sure she said you would be with us until...”

“I am sure she was not incorrect,” Merlin interrupted. “At the time, at least. But I must see to my ship; we shall sail sooner than expected.” 

“Oh,” Alice said again, and ducked quickly out of the room, that he might not see how the news affected her. 

Merlin turned back to the papers before him, signing the last of them with a tired flourish and laying aside the quill. It was perhaps a rash decision, to leave earlier than planned, but the rationale he had used to justify it was impeccable, if somewhat less than honest—while it was true that the weather would only worsen, if they waited, and it was only right that he should be eager to take up his new posting, his true motivations were purely selfish. He knew, now that he had seen the letter and knew that Arthur knew him to be in London—that Arthur knew he was in port and yet had not sent a reply—he was sure Arthur would come searching for him, and he wished to avoid the encounter entirely, for he did not trust himself.

Merlin had known that Arthur was courting. Of course he had known, it was impossible for him to have been ignorant of it. They had oft spoken of it—or rather had not spoken, but the fact had been there between them, lingering, unwelcome and yet inescapable: Arthur must marry. He was bound to do so, and to a lady of proper standing, who would add to the Pendragon estate and the Pendragon name, providing an heir as soon as the ink had dried on the vows and it was proper to do so. Merlin knew, also, that Arthur—while he did not wish for a bride—did wish for a family, for children, for all the simple pleasures which Merlin could not possibly provide him with. The knowledge was unwelcome, the worst sort of unpleasant, but Merlin had believed he'd long since made his peace with it. He knew that Arthur would make an honourable husband and a better father, and had thought himself ready to accept it when it came to pass. He had always known it would pain him to lose Arthur—a deep and lasting pain, as a wound or a sickness that might never fully heal—but he knew also that there was nothing to be done about the matter; it was settled, and had been so long before they had ever become acquainted.

Merlin knew all this, and yet he found himself astoundingly ill-prepared for the storm which the announcement of Arthur's nuptials had brought crashing down on him. He was not fool enough to believe that putting to sea would allow him to escape it, far from it—he knew the thunder in his chest would leave him short of air and temper wherever he was—but he knew himself, knew his failings and the refuges available to him. He would feel more balanced, more at ease with a swaying deck beneath him. The sea had saved him before, and she would do so again gladly; she would take him in her terrible cradle and hold him close, rock him clean from the fury and the doubt which clouded his mind. At sea, he could draw a full breath; the squeezing vise around his throat would loosen. 

Evening had barely begun, the sun not long set, but Merlin began preparing himself to retire. He had not slept and he was wearied from the day, and though he was sure he would find no true rest as long as he stayed ashore, he wished to pull the heavy blanket over him and forget there ever was a world beyond the four corners of his humble room.

He rose early, and though his sleep had been short and fitful he felt the better for it; he dressed himself carefully in his best jacket and left Mrs Simmons with smiles and thanks and a hot pie in hand as he made his way to the docks. Already his heart felt lighter as he surveyed the proud masts awaiting him there—he would put to sea and put his heart to rest, turn his full attentions to his duty—and he was surveying the crowds in an attempt to determine the whereabouts of his lieutenant when he felt a touch at his elbow.

In truth it was less a touch than a painful grip, for he could feel all five fingers digging hard against the joint, and he knew before he turned who he would encounter.

“Merlin,” Arthur said, “Merlin, what madness is this? They said you had five days left still in port.” His hair was dishevelled—indeed, his whole appearance was shamefully unkempt; he was without a jacket or a waistcoat, and his neckcloth was in peculiar disarray. He gripped the reins of a horse which Merlin recognised as belonging to the Pendragon stables, and Merlin's heart gave a desperate lurch against his ribs when he realised that Arthur must have ridden here in a terrible rush, must have run as fast as he was able when he heard that Merlin was putting back to sea. 

Merlin forced himself to turn away, removing his elbow carefully from Arthur's grip. “Lord Pendragon,” he said, as coolly as he was able. “It is a surprise to see you here, sir.”

“Come off it, Merlin,” Arthur said in a low and furious voice. “What is the meaning of this? I have been waiting in agony each day for your letter, for any sign of you, and now this—and now to find you would leave again without so much as a word?”

Merlin had at last caught sight of Mr Spicer; he raised a hand in greeting. “I must get to my ship, sir,” he said, and each word as it fell from his lips hung heavy as a millstone around his heart. 

“ _Merlin_ ,” said Arthur, louder now as he followed Merlin through the crowds of the docks, and Merlin stopped.

“It is Commodore Emrys, if you please, my lord,” he said, turning to look Arthur in the eye. He knew his face to be set and stern, without an inch of warmth—and he also knew that he must escape now, before that mask was any further cracked by the pain in Arthur's voice. “And my ship is waiting; I must take my leave.” He took a step, then paused again, half-turning his face so that his voice would carry behind him. It was cruel; he knew it to be so, and yet he could not leave without this last parting salvo. “My felicitations to you and to your wife, sir. May you share many long years together.”

He left without looking to see the effect his words had—his hands were already shaking, the edges of his vision blurring—he could not risk a backwards glance without his strength crumpling entirely. Instead he strode toward his lieutenant, his hat and the markings of his rank parting the way for him through the jostle of humanity until he stood firm upon his own ship's deck once more, the wind in his sails and the tide beneath him to carry him out to sea. 

They made good time that day: the crew were experienced hands and the weather held, and soon enough the shores of England disappeared below the horizon behind them. Merlin let loose a sigh and left the quarterdeck under the command of Mr Spicer, retiring to his cabin to breathe in privacy a moment. Gaius had not yet been in to arrange things to his liking—there had been some small catastrophe in the main galley which required his attention and the full focus of his considerable sense of injured propriety—and Merlin went straight for his sea chest, digging past the spare shirts and small trinkets that any sailor accumulates along his voyages until he reached the solid bottom of the trunk. There was a hidden catch his fingers knew well; he pressed at it and retrieved a bundle of papers from the secret compartment with an experienced hand.

He did not read the letters. He should not have saved them in the first place, he knew this—he knew he should never have tied them together and kept them instead of destroying them, even hidden as they were—it was a risk he never should have taken, and now the error was easily remedied. It was the work of a moment to set them alight, and he watched their edges curl with something too heavy to be satisfaction collecting in his gut. He dropped the bundle when the flames began to scorch his fingers, and it made a black mark on the floor as the final papers burned to ash. He kicked at it with his boot, wishing it had not left even that much evidence, but he knew Gaius would never say a word about it. 

He closed the hidden compartment and shut his sea chest before dropping into his chair and leaning his head upon his palm. There was an emptiness in him that burning the letters had not eased—he scolded himself now for ever entertaining the idea—he would have to be content to let time and the passing waves do their work. Still he remained there, head in hand, until he heard the piping of the next watch, at which he shook himself and left his cabin without further delay, intent on fulfilling his duties as commander of his ship. There was, after all, nothing else to be done. 

*

They were six months away from home, the long weeks filled with surprisingly few encounters with the French, although the fighting when they did catch a ragged bunch of privateers was fierce enough to sate all their appetites for violence—and the prize was not a bad one, either. Merlin had rendezvoused with the two other ships he was to command in a small fleet not long after leaving England, yet even split into so many portions, the shares were more than satisfactory for all involved. Merlin, when he visited his prize agent upon his return, was surprised to hear he had become a wealthy man—he had known in a vague, theoretical way, that all these prize-takings added up, but he had assumed as every sailor must that such luck was necessarily fleeting—that the fates or the demands of the Service itself would take away with its left hand what it gave with the right. He had nothing to do with the money, or so he felt; it was an odd realisation. He had no children to leave it to, nor, indeed, any close relations at all, and he had no need for fancy clothes or frippery; he was a man of simple tastes. Perhaps he would buy a newer violin, though he was loathe to give up his current fiddle—it was a fine instrument, though somewhat stained, and he knew its peculiarities as intimately as he knew his own skin. 

Occupied in pondering these thoughts as he left his tailor—his jacket had taken more than its fair share of bloodstains and overhasty mendings, and while he was flush, he thought, he might as well have a new one made—he did not entirely mark the man who stopped in front of him in the street until he nigh well ran the poor soul over.

“I do beg your pardon,” Merlin said as he helped the man up, embarrassed at himself. 

“It's an ill wind as blows no good,” the man said cheerfully enough, brushing the dust from his knees. “For I was sent to fetch you, sir, and I had quite lost my way.”

“To fetch me?”

“Aye,” the man said. “If you are the Commodore Emrys I was sent for. I was supposed to be right quick about it, too, and I have been terribly delayed.”

Merlin levelled an evaluating gaze at the man, but he seemed honest enough, no guile detectable in his face—the sort of face one trusted almost implicitly. Though not a gambling man, Merlin thought that he would willingly bet ten guineas that the man had come from the Admiralty; Merlin had only just been there that morning, but he well knew how little that signified. “Very well,” he said at last. “Lead on, then.”

It was a good thing Merlin had not in fact placed a wager, for he would have lost all ten of his guineas. The man led him in quite the opposite direction of the Admiralty, and as they wound through streets which widened and became more pleasant, the houses they passed more opulent, Merlin was filled with a terrible, sinking sense of inevitability. 

He remained gracious to the man—with whom, after all, he had no real quarrel—and courteous to the servants at Pendragon House as they ushered him through the familiar doors and showed him to a quiet study at the rear of the house, but all this was merely a front, maintained only with the strongest force exerted over his natural passions. He could feel the fury brewing in him, growing bitter and more pointed with every step, and at last he admitted that the sea, despite all his hopes, had not cleansed him from his hurt; he began to feel, as he stepped into the darkened study, that he would never truly be free of Arthur—of his obsession with the man. Obsession, he thought, as he stood just inside the door, noting that the curtains had been drawn across the windows, because surely—surely—something which carried with it so much pain could never be love.

Arthur was seated in a deep armchair, the leather so dark Merlin could not help but notice the contrast against the brightness of Arthur's hair. He did not allow himself to continue that thought—indeed, he barely looked at Arthur at all, focusing instead at a point just beside Arthur's left ear. 

This did not go unnoticed by Arthur. “Sit,” he said, offering with a sweep of his hand the only other seat in the room: another armchair by the fire, though it was far lighter in colour and nowhere near so deep.

“Thank you, my lord,” Merlin said, without inflection. “I prefer to stand.”

Neither of them quite knew how to continue the conversation after that, and they remained staring not quite at each other for long, interminable moments. 

“Why,” Arthur said quietly, after he could bear the silence no longer, “why did you leave?”

“I should have thought that was obvious,” Merlin said coldly. “My orders—”

“Damn your orders!” Arthur exclaimed, leaping from his seat to stand before Merlin, arms akimbo. “You thought to sneak away at dawn, to leave with nary a word to me in reason or explanation. It is not in your nature to be so craven, Merlin; _why_ , damn you, why?”

The laugh that Merlin gave at that was low and ugly—it scraped his throat and set his nerves to jangling. “Why?” he repeated. “You wish to know why I refused to see you? Tell me, Arthur, were you always so arrogant? My memories are no longer to be trusted in judging you. You dare to ask me _why_ , when the reason was published in the papers for all the world to see?” He shook his head. “Search more deeply for the answer; I am sure it will come to you soon enough.”

Arthur had gone very still while Merlin spoke, and when he opened his mouth his tone was measured, carefully controlled. “You will not bring her into this.”

“Shall I not?” Merlin could feel another horrible laugh bruising at his throat. He swallowed it down and turned instead to studying the curios on the mantel. There was a painting above it: a roughly made row-boat with a haggard group of men gathered in its meagre safety, menaced on all sides by foaming waves. Such a scene, he thought, would be preferable to the torment of this too-small room. “Then we have nothing left to discuss.”

Arthur could not help the step forward he took as Merlin turned to the door; he could not help the words which slipped out between his gritted teeth. “Wait! Merlin—” 

Merlin stood silent, his back to Arthur still, and Arthur struggled to control the desperation which welled up from between his bones to seep out through his skin. To have Merlin so close and yet so disastrously far removed was a torture he had never believed truly possible; he felt barely able to draw breath. 

“The _papers_ , Arthur,” Merlin said, almost inaudible, his head bent, exposing the pale nape of his neck. “I had to read it in the papers, without a word of warning from you.”

Arthur frowned, turning the words and the clear hurt behind them over in his mind. “I wrote to you,” he said slowly, for so he had, pouring the darkest, most terrified corners of his heart onto the page as he begged—begged for—“I wrote to you months and months before any of it; I told you of my predicament; I asked—” but here his voice curled in on itself, choking him, and he was forced to stop, clearing his throat.

Merlin did not turn around, but he did reach one hand out, groping until he could brace himself on the chair. 

“I wrote to you,” Arthur repeated. “Merlin, I swear it. I wrote to you, and never heard a word, and I thought...I believed you indifferent; I thought you must not have wanted what—what I—” His cursed voice broke on him once more, and he pushed his thumb and forefinger against his eyes, breathing deeply.

“Indifferent?” Merlin asked, finally facing him. “Indifferent? What wrongs have I done you, for you to think me ever _indifferent_ to you?”

“It must have gone astray,” Arthur whispered, his eyes locked with Merlin's. 

Merlin waved this aside, stepping closer, closing the space between them. “I have never been indifferent to you,” he murmured, taking Arthur's hand in his. His anger had not gone, but it had abated—had been redirected to fuel quite another thing entirely. “From the day we met, I have been helpless against you.”

Arthur could feel Merlin's breath against his lips, could see the pulse jumping in his neck; he twisted their fingers together and held fast. “I have only ever loved you,” he said. “I was lost to all other loves the moment we met across a chessboard. How could I choose to love another, when you are the only partner I have ever desired?”

“Arthur—” Merlin began, his voice uneven, but Arthur kissed him before more words could come between them. It was like falling unexpectedly into a familiar pond on a blazing day—like being struck by lightning on a rooftop—like tumbling from a cliff, with no idea how far the ground lay beneath him and without the slightest worry about the landing. Merlin's hands were warm against Arthur's shoulders, his fingers digging in between the sinew and the bones, and Arthur kissed him harder, pulling Merlin flush against him until Merlin made a soft sound and gave up all resistance, his arms around Arthur's neck and his fingertips in Arthur's hair, holding them together. Merlin's lips were chapped, the inside of his mouth soft and wet and full of heat, and Arthur felt all the buzzing horror which had plagued him since he had last seen Merlin vanish beneath the attentions of Merlin's tongue.

They stood there, heedlessly trading kisses and whispered endearments, for how long Arthur knew not. His neckcloth was gone, his waistcoat too, lost to Merlin's wandering hands, and his shirt lay gaping open; he had his own hand tucked down the back of Merlin's loosened breeches, fingers stretching down over the familiar curve of Merlin's arse. When they pushed together, grinding against each other almost lazily, Arthur could feel the heat and pressure of Merlin's hardness against his own—he thought to sit in his chair and draw Merlin after him, to more properly attend to matters—but the moment he moved he could feel Merlin stiffen and pull away, breaking the kiss, leaving Arthur's mouth swollen and bruised. 

“I'm sorry,” Merlin said, frantic, overcome by his emotions—chief among which were grief and guilt—and he fumbled with his breeches, attempting to fasten them, but he was shaking too much to manage the task. “I never meant to—”

Arthur sank into the chair, muddled by a foggy sort of confusion, and Merlin paused. 

“Don't you see,” Merlin said softly, reaching for Arthur's face before remembering himself and pulling his hand back. “This changes nothing. It's too late for us, Arthur.”

“I don't understand.” Arthur's voice was thick as he spoke. He looked magnificently rumpled, his chest still flushed red beneath his open shirt, and Merlin ached to kiss him again, to lay him out and claim him unequivocally until his groans echoed through all the streets of London.

“It was only ever a vanishing time, what we had,” Merlin said, finally fastening his breeches. He could feel that his hair betrayed him still—he had lost the tie holding it in its queue, and Arthur's attentions had been quite extensive—but he could not look away from Arthur to search for it. “Arthur, it was nothing that could have given any promise of permanence.”

“How can you say that?” Arthur demanded. “After everything we have shared—am I to believe it was all a lie? Am I to believe that even now you only spin me more falsehoods?

“You wilfully misunderstand me.”

“Then you must explain yourself more carefully.”

Merlin scowled. “You are _married_. Had you forgotten that, Arthur? Have I that strong an effect on you?”

He meant the words to sting, but he had not expected the pain which gripped him as Arthur dropped his head. “You know you do.”

“Arthur—”

Arthur sat upright in the chair, with as much poise and presence as he might have seated in Parliament. “I do not love her.” He delivered the statement simply, without embellishment, and yet Merlin still felt himself gaping at the bluntness of it, the decisiveness with which Arthur spoke the words. Arthur looked up, and Merlin, once caught in his gaze, could not break it. “She knows this.”

“Does she know _all_ of it?” Merlin asked, sharp, and Arthur forbore answering, reaching instead to catch once more at Merlin's hand.

“She bears no love for me, either,” Arthur explained, and the earnestness with which he spoke near broke Merlin's heart. “This marriage—it is an agreement between our families, nothing more; we both of us entered into it with our eyes open, our hearts apart and already occupied.”

Merlin sank to his knees in front of Arthur, laying their entwined hands on Arthur's knee. “Then I am sorry for you,” he said quietly. “It is as if a judge has taken you away, locked you in to serve a life sentence at some distant prison—and from today I will only ever catch lucky glimpses of you through a window.”

Arthur cupped a hand along Merlin's jaw, a gentle touch. “Why?” he asked, sweeping a thumb over the stubble on Merlin's cheek. “Why must it be so, when even a prisoner may have visits from those he loves?”

“Visits?” Merlin said, catching gently at Arthur's hand even as he felt something within him cry out desperately for the rope Arthur had thrown him. “We cannot, Arthur. You cannot even think such a thing.”

“It is all I can think of.” Arthur did not let go of Merlin's other hand, though Merlin tugged to free himself. He knew he had already made a spectacle; he was throwing himself desperately, unbecomingly, at Merlin, and as long as he had sunk this low he intended to claim whatever victory might still be open to him. “I spend each day thinking of it; you occupy my every moment. I cannot forget it so easily, as you can.”

Merlin felt the words as a blow. The hurt weakened him, but in this, he knew, he must stand firm, however broken he might feel. He would not have called himself a man of God—he was only religious as a seafaring man can be, filled more with superstition than with any sort of higher faith—but Arthur had made a promise before the altar—he had bound himself to someone else willingly and in full comprehension of his actions—and Merlin could not, would not allow himself to be the one to break that bond. “You think it is easy for me to forget, to let go?” he said, his voice thick. “You are blind, then, for you do not see how I fade to a shadow of myself when you leave me; how my thoughts bend toward you without ceasing and my hand reaches for you in the loneliest hours of the night. No, Arthur, I cannot forget.”

“Then do not,” Arthur pressed, almost pleading. “Merlin, I must bind myself to a wife to preserve my name, my family, but I know God sees every small place of my heart—he must see how full to the brim it is with you, how utterly I am lost, and I cannot think him indifferent to that love.” Merlin had not seen Arthur move, but so he must have, for suddenly he was pushing a ring into Merlin's palm, the shock of cool metal warming quickly between their hands. He slid from the chair to kneel facing Merlin as Merlin stared at the ring, every thought having fled, leaving him motionless. “Let me bind myself to you,” Arthur said. “Let me claim you for myself as firmly as you claim me. Let us pledge for richer, poorer; in sickness and health—'til death, with Heaven as our only witness.”

The ring was simple, elegantly made; a slim band of gold which Merlin already knew must fit him perfectly. There was nothing inscribed upon or in it—there did not have to be. It was enough that the ring existed at all. He wished—wished with every fibre in his body—to slip it on, to fall into Arthur's arms, Arthur's kisses—to lose himself to this madness entirely, with no hope of rescue—and he teetered on the edge of it for long moments, hardly breathing.

“Heaven has already borne witness to my pledge,” he said at last. “God knows to whom my heart belongs entirely; he knows well how incapable I am of ever breaking the vows I have made in silence.” He tipped his hand—slowly, slowly, his resolve already weakening as he did so—until the ring slid back into Arthur's palm, and he folded Arthur's fingers around it, holding Arthur's hand between both of his, unable to keep himself from pressing tightly. 

“I am promised to you in every lifetime,” Merlin said, his voice splintering, the vowels cracking as hey forced them from his throat, “both this one and the hereafter, but I cannot—that is something you can no longer give to me.”

“It is already yours,” Arthur said. “It has always been entirely yours, dear heart.” 

Merlin though, was shaking, shivering from emotion and overwhelmed; he struggled to his feet and left Arthur there, kneeling as a supplicant. How he stumbled home he could not have said, nor how he managed to sleep at all—his very being was awhirl, Arthur's words echoing through his head, repeating and splitting to mix with his own, consuming him until he could do no more than lie on his narrow bed and throw an arm across his eyes in despair. It would have been better to be captured by the French, he thought; to be torn and bleeding from a visible place, instead of this agony which must remain hidden away from all eyes; better to be locked upon the rack, instead of enduring this torturous lust, the temptation which even now filled his breast. 

Alice came and went in her normal duties; he did not note her presence, but when he at last roused himself in the evening, he found the package she had left for him on the table. He stared at it, mistrustful, hardly daring to hope—

But the handwriting on the note attached was not Arthur's, and Arthur would no longer write Merlin letters, not after the events of the previous day. Merlin sat and bowed his head until the sharp pain of that thought had subsided, and opened the note.

_Merlin,_ the note said in Arthur's familiar script, and Merlin closed his eyes against the nauseous emotion which swamped him. It could not be. Arthur could not be so mad as to send him something like this in writing—something which would end with certainty in death if it ever fell into curious hands.

And yet the evidence was there before him— _Merlin,_ spelled out in Arthur's swooping hand—and as Merlin read on he grew almost faint, for Arthur had poured his very soul into the page, it seemed, heedless of the dangers. When he had finished reading it, he sat very quietly, running the paper through his fingers, folding and unfolding it as he stared at the small packet which had accompanied it. It was a terrible, foolish risk—a risk which only a mad or desperate man would take—and yet Merlin could not help but tear the package open, even knowing what he would find nestled inside. The ring was just as he remembered, and he was left staring at it where it lay motionless on the table, his thoughts scattered and wild.

He knew that he should tie the ring to a cannonball and sink it as soon as he reached open ocean. He knew he should burn the letter before he left the room, to leave no evidence of Arthur's folly—to save Arthur from himself—and yet. 

And yet, he sat there, staring into nothing as the minutes ticked over into hours and the night crawled by him into morning. The ring lay before him—his hands lay on his thighs—his mind lay worlds away entirely, tumbling in a frantic confusion which nevertheless seemed curiously distant to him where he sat in his silent room with only the dying fire for a light. The bare facts were before him, and he had not the least idea what he should do with them; he only knew that, were he to be honest before his own mind, he was at least as deep in madness as Arthur—but where that left him he did not know.

He sat unmoving until the dawn came peeking into his room around the shutters. He shook himself, and stretched, and laid his head upon the table, his eyes tightly closed. But there was no rest for him to find, and he stood after only a moment, reaching for the letter. He allowed himself to read it one last time—inscribing the words upon his memory, his fingers dragging over the penstrokes, the ink spots where Arthur's hurry to write had cost him in spatters across the page—before he crouched before the grate, stirring the embers as he held the paper to them, holding it until it caught and burned entirely, leaving only ash where there had been words. 

The ring he took and held in his fisted hand, pressed against his mouth. It warmed quickly against his skin—warmed until it seemed to him it possessed its own heat, as if Arthur had somehow placed his own warmth within it. He did not put it on, but slipped it carefully in his pocket, patting the cloth now and then as he moved about the room to reassure himself it had not fallen out through some unknown hole. His jacket was waiting for him, freshly pressed, and his hat beside it; he donned both and spent only the barest moment checking to ensure everything was in its proper place before striding through the door.

The tide, after all, would not wait.

_Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer,_  
 _To add something more to this wonderful year;_  
 _To honour we call you, as freemen not slaves,_  
 _ **For who are so free as the sons of the waves?**_

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly spoilery preface: I am going to pretend there is a gif here of Moriarty snarling _I WILL RIP THE_ HEART _OUT OF YOU_ , and we are all going to pretend that I am deeply distressed at being such a terrible, horrible, awful person, and then we will all get on with enjoying ourselves immensely as we weep great big buckets, shall we?
> 
> Which is all to say: you might want a box of tissues at hand to read this with (and perhaps a back-up fluff fic for afters). I'll keep one for you just here, and I won't even mind if you cry into my shoulder and beat at me with your fists. <3


End file.
